Now that you mention it though.. it is kind of odd that only a couple of days ago we read that Wine can now run Microsoft Word 2000 and Excel 2000. Coincidence?:-)
Which of our favorite uber-hackers has been released from prison within the last year that might want to rebel against the establishment by pulling off something so dasterdly? Could it be.. hmm.. oh I don't know.. maybe.. hmm.. THIS GUY? He DID steal source code in his previous days.;-)
But Sealand is a sovereign country. According to their FAQ a few months ago, the only thing they will not host is child pornography on Sealand itself. They planned on establishing POPs in various countries with various laws.. the laws of that country would determine what is legal or illegal. I would imagine if they established a POP in China the code would be distributed from there.;-) All I want to know is.. WHERE ARE THE MIRRORS!? Get this thing out there! Get it on EVERYONE's servers. Bitchslap Microsoft once and for all. I have a feeling though there's not much use of having the MS source code without having all the development tools they use and the roadmaps and notes... there's probably more spaghetti code in Windows than in Mozilla and StarOffice combined (actually we're positive of that). The Mozilla guys just gave up and started from scratch... hehe. So, like Mozilla.. will the source they stole even compile or do you need their secret tools? I doubt they use GNU auto configure and make!
Why on Earth do you care what your karma is? If Rob knew any better he would simply make it invisible to everyone so they stop playing these foolish games. It's a meaningless number not some score on who good a poster you are.
When a kid is old enough to hold the gun and shoot straight at a target he's old enough to own a gun. With that comes the responsibility of taking safety classes and knowing how to properly store it. I'd rather have a 16 year old own a handgun to use for target shooting than stick them behind the wheel of a 1 and a half ton car propelling down the road at 80mph.
Your argument is flawed. The same crazed person that would go and shoot someone could also just as easily run someone over with a stolen car. *Criminals* do NOT live by the same set of rules as law-abiding citizens do. It doesn't matter jack shit if you outlaw guns, drugs, fast cars, crotch rockets, or exploding manequins... if criminals want them they WILL get them. I know it is a tired phrase, but when you outlaw something, only the outlaws will have it! Guns can be used for defense AGAINST these criminals as easily as they can be used for offense against innocents.
I agree. OpenBSD is absolutely beautiful for a cheap home NAT'ing firewall. I found myself one of those nice Siemens Linux terminals (IDT 200MHz Winchip, 64 megs of ram, built in ethernet and SVGA onboard) on an onsale.com auction, popped an old 545 meg hard drive into it and two $15 Realtek PCI ethernet cards (also via onsale) and voila. OpenBSD firewall box complete with onboard third interface for services network.;-)
I highly recommend this to even the most bigotted Linux advocates. I was one of them before I tried it. Linux is fine for my desktop box but I'll make damn sure from now on it'll stay behind me openbsd firewall on my DSL.:-)
Man, getting a pilot's license is so expensive though. If they could get the cost down to maybe $50 with about 2 or 3 hours of training required I'd go for it. Otherwise that would suck. Just make them as easy to operate as a car and you're golden. These things aren't really planes. Hell, even planes don't need to be complicated anymore... the computer can practically fly it from takeoff to landing... some people just have some reason to believe a human needs to be there "controlling" it. Bah. I want to get in my personal aircraft, punch in my destination, and then sit back and browse the web while my aircraft's computer flies me there. VTOL gets rid of the nasty airport requirement like you said. Take off and land in a friggin parking lot. No problemo. And don't say that this WON'T ever happen because it will. 50 years ago the only people that could operate a computer were geeky brainy scientists in white lab coats in a sealed environment flipping switches on a huge room sized computer, now we have Macs that even the stupidest idiots can use. The only difference between flying and driving on a highway is the third dimension. Computers can compensate for that the same way they're starting to be able to drive a car on a highway without any driver intervention at all from start to finish.
I don't buy that. I don't buy it at all. I think the people that tend to beta test new Windows releases are those interested in seeing what new features are coming down the pike. Considering Microsoft only releases a new version every 1 or 2 years people are anxious to get something new to play with. With Linux you can constantly update to the newest kernel if you wish. I used to be a kernel update junky.. always had to grab the newest one. Lately I've gotten sick of it and am quite content with the kernels I'm running. 2.2.10 on an alpha, 2.2.15 on an x86 box, etc. They're stable, perform fine, and give me no headaches. Since these aren't multiuser machines I also don't have to worry about the recent security holes in the 2.2.15 and below kernels either. I suppose some day I'll upgrade them.. probably when I update the distro I installed, but I'm in no hurry. Does my Samba fileserver for my home network REALLY need to be running the latest greatest kernel with all the newest patched utilities like Samba? Of course not. It works fine, I don't need any of the new features, and none of the bugs affect its functionality. I think the whole notion they anyone is even expecting that we upgrade to 2.4 for no reason gets back to what we were all bitching at Microsoft about. They release a new version every 2 years and expect you to upgrade for a fee to it while phasing the old version out completely. Does Linux really need to be like the car industry? Is planned obsolesence good for the kernel?? That's ridiculous.
True, there are no studies which support the 'cell phones could be dangerous' proposition - however there are also
no statistically valid studies which support the 'being punched in the nose hurts' proposition either.
Oh I doubt that. I'm sure there are plenty of studies that prove being punched in the nose hurts. Any medical report of a boxing injury would satisfy your claim for instance.
That's the excuse, but it isn't a valid one. I'm sorry, but claiming that money for state-sponsored gambling goes to education is no better than money going to Chief Sitting-In-My-New-Rolls-Royce-Bull and his $5 billion casino in upstate New York. If a state deems gambling illegal then it should ban ALL forms of gambling INCLUDING lotteries AND horse tracks. Take Ohio for instance.. we have horse tracks here where you can gamble and we have a state lottery. Yet you can't build a casino here. No biggy, you can go to Detroit or Windsor or Niagara Falls which are all within a few hours drive. So Ohio loses out. I don't know who first said the phrase (paraphrased) "Gambling is a tax on stupid people." People would rather throw away $1 on a chance to win $20 million than stand back and look at their chances.. less than one in 13 million in Ohio. One in *13 million*. I'm not a betting man, but those aren't very good odds. You're far more likely to be killed in a drive by shooting by a bunch of crack whores in suburbia than you are to win the lottery.
Anyway, let's get back to the "moral" issue. What are we really teaching our kids here? "Oh.. since the money goes to education, it's ok that we're ripping off the poor and inept members of our society and duping them into believing they have any chance in hell of becoming one of those lucky millionares they see in the commercials." Studies have shown time and time again that state lotteries and gambling in general pray on the lowest income segments of your population. These people are willing to wager a portion of their meager income just for the chance of winning it big and being put on easy street along with the rich. The rich gamble because they're already friggin rich and aren't going to miss a few million here or there they blow in a casino to impress a few chicks. The poor on the other hand may be making the decision to not eat meat that week so they can stuff some cash away to buy a handful of lottery tickets. That's just sad IMHO. So we should really decide.. do we want gambling in our society? If so, then legalize all of it. No lotteries.. no state sponsored casinos or regulated race tracks. Let capitalism rear its ugly head and put a shiny blinking buzzing casino on every suburban street if they want to. Let kids walk past the intoxicated penniless losers as they stumble out of it. I don't care.
Whose values? Why, like you said.. the values of the majority of the land owning taxpayers in the city. The values of the VOTERS in the city especially. If the mayor and the city council put into place a ban on homosexual relationships in San Francisco for instance, they'd probably be ousted come the next election. If you disagree with the community values implemented by your local government, you need to exercise your vote. If the majority of people agree with you then the people that put the values into place will be gone and they can be changed along with the laws. If not, then you are SOL and simply need to deal with it. That, or move to a more liberal town like San Francisco where you can do whatever you want and no one cares.;-)
That's a good observation. Kids shouldn't be going to arcades and throwing their money away on blatantly violent coin-operated games. There's no reason that shit should be allowed in public. If their parents want to buy them a violent console or computer game then so be it. Why is this even an issue? Children don't have any rights that their parents don't give them.
Mission critical systems that could result in the loss of life are no place to be playing around with community developed applications. If the space shuttle's computers crashed everytime my Linux box has (about once a year or so.. depending) it would be a national emergency. These systems must NOT fail. The code is tightly audited, new procedures have to be extremely well documented, etc. Now, the payment system for the New York metro is one thing.. but the air traffic control system is quite another! I do not want a bunch of 15 year old kids contributing code that will decide whether the plane I'm flying on will fall out of the sky or not. These systems should be redundant, expensive, and extremely tightly audited.
That's awesome. Personally I think we should just divy up and license all our natural resources to big businesses. Alaskan wilderness? Who is EVER going to use that shit? Let the oil companies drill it dry and trample it all. Yellowstone.. There's gotta be something cool there. Maybe build a series of Yellowstone stripmalls. Need to cut down those pesky trees though and cap off that dangerous waterspout.. wouldn't want a lawsuit. Giving in to corporations is just the next step to being ruled by corporations. Eventually they'll just disolve the government and our laws will come from a series of legal contracts with Omnicorp.. the last remaining corporation which produces everything we consume. How about these companies reallocate the bandwidth that they ALREADY HAVE? Do we really need 4 or 5 different competing cell phone "standards" wasting our airwaves in the united states?
There is NOTHING stopping ANYONE from getting a ham license. Go take the relatively simple test and you can start using the bandwidth. I am sick and tired of the god damned commercial interests taking precedence over everything. Yes, they are a natural resource, and just like we don't let loggers cut down all of our protected state parks so that people can enjoy them, we shouldn't throw away the amateur bands.
The hobby has a reputation as a haven for a bunch of crotchety old men who talk about nothing but ham radio, and collect postcards from people in small countries that they have done nothing more than exchange callsigns and reception reports from. Ham radio needs to have new blood. Many of the current ham population have pointed out that the thing that attracted them to radio was the ability to contact strange and distant lands, and that these days that role is fulfiled by the Internet.
Well, speaking as a relatively new ham (got it in 1998) I would have to say I sort of agree with the "crotchety old men" remark. Ever go to a ham radio convention like at Dayton, OH? Jesus... it's a ton of old buggers selling every piece of shit they have in their basement they could lug.
I only got involved in it for the emergency communications aspect of the service. In the event of a real catastrophe there isn't going to be any phones or Internet connections.;-) It's also cool to help out at events by helping with medical communications (for emergencies, etc). IMHO that aspect of the amateur radio service is far more important than a bunch of old farts sitting on a repeater bullshitting about yet-another-useless topic or talking about their equipment. The license requirement also seems to tend to keep the signal to noise ratio down a bit and keep the idiots off of it.
How about the FCC mandating that we abandon all of these different incompatible systems and adopt a single standard cellular phone system like Europe has (maybe even using the same technology.. I know regular travelers to Europe would love to have just one phone). Get rid of the mish-mash of competing standards and you'll probably free up tons of bandwidth.
rofl. I was thinking the same thing! (as I'm sure many people were). "What the hell does the Whitehouse need that much bandwidth for?? Streaming porn? Videoconferences with interns?"
I thought russia was spending their money on oh.... say food? we are the only country that is really making oodles of money and we are not the only one making "stuff".
Correction, Russia was spending *our* money (the USA) and their launch vehicles on supporting Mir running the damned missions for Mircorp. They were being paid by the USA to build the damned module. The only reason being to foster international "unity" (no pun intended). It looks better in the papers to see the USA funneling money through the space program to NASA than just sending them a check for welfare aid.
I have to wonder -- why the hell are they flying with such flaky systems? And why are all the systems running Windows? I'm not suggesting everything suddenly switch to Linux, but it would seem to make sense that the servers (at least) run something more stable than the ones currently flying have demonstrated themselves to be.
Well, I don't know about the control systems for the shuttle, but they certainly do run Windows on the ground workstations to control experiments, from here: --------------------------------------------
In addition to cost savings, Bradford promotes broadband connectivity via Internet2 networks as a way to allow wider participation in ISS science activities by academic and commercial entities. Using the Telescience Resource Kit (TReK), a Windows NT-based telemetry and command system developed by Marshall software engineers, researchers can monitor and control space station experiments directly from their offices and laboratories at home.
"This past year, we also put TRek workstations in 26 middle schools and high schools around the country," says Bradford. "We sent simulated space station data over their school networks, allowing them to participate in space station science."
A researcher needs a workstation with considerable horsepower to manage the telemetry, command payload operations, and communicate with the space station via voice and video. The recommended TRek hardware configuration is a dual Pentium III 500 MHz machine with a high-resolution display, 256 MB RAM and a 9 GB SCSI hard drive.
*snip*
"TRek has an open API", says Michelle Schneider, TRek development project lead. "It's basically a DLL library, a set of C functions, that any commercial product that supports an ANSI-C interface, such Visual C++ or Visual Basic, can use to retrieve telemetry data." Researchers also have the option of linking in other libraries such as Huntsville, Ala.-based Global Majic Software's instrumentation library to build end-user displays and computations that contain x-y plots, bar charts and other graphics. "We try to keep our telemetry processing system generic by using a Microsoft Access database to describe how a telemetry stream is put together. There is also a database definition document that details the schema and all of the database tables. We've had some internal discussion about a TRek port to the Linux platform, but that hasn't gotten off the ground yet."
-------------------------------------------
So basically, I don't know about the actual command of the vehicle itself, but the experiments are controlled via Microsoft Windows NT workstations (i.e. TReK).
Your social security money? Your social security money goes to pay for your grandmother and/or parents once they retire. Their social security "tax" went to their parents and grandparents (and others of retirement age of course). Social security is just a big ponzi scheme that will collapse in about 20 years once the baby boomers start retiring. I don't know about you, but I'll be about 45 then and I sure as hell am not going to watch 50-75% of my income taken away to sustain the same social security level for the boomers that retirees today get. Honestly, we should have done away with it years ago and instituted more tax deductions and tax-free investment plans that employees can use to build a REAL retirement fund. Oh wait, I forgot, we can't do that since we're stuck in this ponzi scheme. If we take the money we're paying social security now and invest it instead then there's no money for the current recipients. Oh well. We'll just keep paying our social security tax and pretend it'll be there when we retire. hehe. I'll also keep believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy while I'm at it.
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Now that you mention it though.. it is kind of odd that only a couple of days ago we read that Wine can now run Microsoft Word 2000 and Excel 2000. Coincidence? :-)
Which of our favorite uber-hackers has been released from prison within the last year that might want to rebel against the establishment by pulling off something so dasterdly? Could it be.. hmm.. oh I don't know.. maybe.. hmm.. THIS GUY? He DID steal source code in his previous days. ;-)
But Sealand is a sovereign country. According to their FAQ a few months ago, the only thing they will not host is child pornography on Sealand itself. They planned on establishing POPs in various countries with various laws.. the laws of that country would determine what is legal or illegal. I would imagine if they established a POP in China the code would be distributed from there. ;-) All I want to know is.. WHERE ARE THE MIRRORS!? Get this thing out there! Get it on EVERYONE's servers. Bitchslap Microsoft once and for all. I have a feeling though there's not much use of having the MS source code without having all the development tools they use and the roadmaps and notes... there's probably more spaghetti code in Windows than in Mozilla and StarOffice combined (actually we're positive of that). The Mozilla guys just gave up and started from scratch... hehe. So, like Mozilla.. will the source they stole even compile or do you need their secret tools? I doubt they use GNU auto configure and make!
Why on Earth do you care what your karma is? If Rob knew any better he would simply make it invisible to everyone so they stop playing these foolish games. It's a meaningless number not some score on who good a poster you are.
When a kid is old enough to hold the gun and shoot straight at a target he's old enough to own a gun. With that comes the responsibility of taking safety classes and knowing how to properly store it. I'd rather have a 16 year old own a handgun to use for target shooting than stick them behind the wheel of a 1 and a half ton car propelling down the road at 80mph.
Your argument is flawed. The same crazed person that would go and shoot someone could also just as easily run someone over with a stolen car. *Criminals* do NOT live by the same set of rules as law-abiding citizens do. It doesn't matter jack shit if you outlaw guns, drugs, fast cars, crotch rockets, or exploding manequins... if criminals want them they WILL get them. I know it is a tired phrase, but when you outlaw something, only the outlaws will have it! Guns can be used for defense AGAINST these criminals as easily as they can be used for offense against innocents.
I agree. OpenBSD is absolutely beautiful for a cheap home NAT'ing firewall. I found myself one of those nice Siemens Linux terminals (IDT 200MHz Winchip, 64 megs of ram, built in ethernet and SVGA onboard) on an onsale.com auction, popped an old 545 meg hard drive into it and two $15 Realtek PCI ethernet cards (also via onsale) and voila. OpenBSD firewall box complete with onboard third interface for services network. ;-)
:-)
I highly recommend this to even the most bigotted Linux advocates. I was one of them before I tried it. Linux is fine for my desktop box but I'll make damn sure from now on it'll stay behind me openbsd firewall on my DSL.
I think that's what he was getting at. That's why the network folks were screaming. ;-)
Man, getting a pilot's license is so expensive though. If they could get the cost down to maybe $50 with about 2 or 3 hours of training required I'd go for it. Otherwise that would suck. Just make them as easy to operate as a car and you're golden. These things aren't really planes. Hell, even planes don't need to be complicated anymore... the computer can practically fly it from takeoff to landing... some people just have some reason to believe a human needs to be there "controlling" it. Bah. I want to get in my personal aircraft, punch in my destination, and then sit back and browse the web while my aircraft's computer flies me there. VTOL gets rid of the nasty airport requirement like you said. Take off and land in a friggin parking lot. No problemo. And don't say that this WON'T ever happen because it will. 50 years ago the only people that could operate a computer were geeky brainy scientists in white lab coats in a sealed environment flipping switches on a huge room sized computer, now we have Macs that even the stupidest idiots can use. The only difference between flying and driving on a highway is the third dimension. Computers can compensate for that the same way they're starting to be able to drive a car on a highway without any driver intervention at all from start to finish.
A sea-level passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific huh? How about a 100 mile wide channel through the middle of Mexico? :-)
I don't buy that. I don't buy it at all. I think the people that tend to beta test new Windows releases are those interested in seeing what new features are coming down the pike. Considering Microsoft only releases a new version every 1 or 2 years people are anxious to get something new to play with. With Linux you can constantly update to the newest kernel if you wish. I used to be a kernel update junky.. always had to grab the newest one. Lately I've gotten sick of it and am quite content with the kernels I'm running. 2.2.10 on an alpha, 2.2.15 on an x86 box, etc. They're stable, perform fine, and give me no headaches. Since these aren't multiuser machines I also don't have to worry about the recent security holes in the 2.2.15 and below kernels either. I suppose some day I'll upgrade them.. probably when I update the distro I installed, but I'm in no hurry. Does my Samba fileserver for my home network REALLY need to be running the latest greatest kernel with all the newest patched utilities like Samba? Of course not. It works fine, I don't need any of the new features, and none of the bugs affect its functionality. I think the whole notion they anyone is even expecting that we upgrade to 2.4 for no reason gets back to what we were all bitching at Microsoft about. They release a new version every 2 years and expect you to upgrade for a fee to it while phasing the old version out completely. Does Linux really need to be like the car industry? Is planned obsolesence good for the kernel?? That's ridiculous.
True, there are no studies which support the 'cell phones could be dangerous' proposition - however there are also
no statistically valid studies which support the 'being punched in the nose hurts' proposition either.
Oh I doubt that. I'm sure there are plenty of studies that prove being punched in the nose hurts. Any medical report of a boxing injury would satisfy your claim for instance.
Anyway, let's get back to the "moral" issue. What are we really teaching our kids here? "Oh.. since the money goes to education, it's ok that we're ripping off the poor and inept members of our society and duping them into believing they have any chance in hell of becoming one of those lucky millionares they see in the commercials." Studies have shown time and time again that state lotteries and gambling in general pray on the lowest income segments of your population. These people are willing to wager a portion of their meager income just for the chance of winning it big and being put on easy street along with the rich. The rich gamble because they're already friggin rich and aren't going to miss a few million here or there they blow in a casino to impress a few chicks. The poor on the other hand may be making the decision to not eat meat that week so they can stuff some cash away to buy a handful of lottery tickets. That's just sad IMHO. So we should really decide.. do we want gambling in our society? If so, then legalize all of it. No lotteries.. no state sponsored casinos or regulated race tracks. Let capitalism rear its ugly head and put a shiny blinking buzzing casino on every suburban street if they want to. Let kids walk past the intoxicated penniless losers as they stumble out of it. I don't care.
Whose values? Why, like you said.. the values of the majority of the land owning taxpayers in the city. The values of the VOTERS in the city especially. If the mayor and the city council put into place a ban on homosexual relationships in San Francisco for instance, they'd probably be ousted come the next election. If you disagree with the community values implemented by your local government, you need to exercise your vote. If the majority of people agree with you then the people that put the values into place will be gone and they can be changed along with the laws. If not, then you are SOL and simply need to deal with it. That, or move to a more liberal town like San Francisco where you can do whatever you want and no one cares. ;-)
That's a good observation. Kids shouldn't be going to arcades and throwing their money away on blatantly violent coin-operated games. There's no reason that shit should be allowed in public. If their parents want to buy them a violent console or computer game then so be it. Why is this even an issue? Children don't have any rights that their parents don't give them.
Mission critical systems that could result in the loss of life are no place to be playing around with community developed applications. If the space shuttle's computers crashed everytime my Linux box has (about once a year or so.. depending) it would be a national emergency. These systems must NOT fail. The code is tightly audited, new procedures have to be extremely well documented, etc. Now, the payment system for the New York metro is one thing.. but the air traffic control system is quite another! I do not want a bunch of 15 year old kids contributing code that will decide whether the plane I'm flying on will fall out of the sky or not. These systems should be redundant, expensive, and extremely tightly audited.
That's awesome. Personally I think we should just divy up and license all our natural resources to big businesses. Alaskan wilderness? Who is EVER going to use that shit? Let the oil companies drill it dry and trample it all. Yellowstone.. There's gotta be something cool there. Maybe build a series of Yellowstone stripmalls. Need to cut down those pesky trees though and cap off that dangerous waterspout.. wouldn't want a lawsuit. Giving in to corporations is just the next step to being ruled by corporations. Eventually they'll just disolve the government and our laws will come from a series of legal contracts with Omnicorp.. the last remaining corporation which produces everything we consume. How about these companies reallocate the bandwidth that they ALREADY HAVE? Do we really need 4 or 5 different competing cell phone "standards" wasting our airwaves in the united states?
There is NOTHING stopping ANYONE from getting a ham license. Go take the relatively simple test and you can start using the bandwidth. I am sick and tired of the god damned commercial interests taking precedence over everything. Yes, they are a natural resource, and just like we don't let loggers cut down all of our protected state parks so that people can enjoy them, we shouldn't throw away the amateur bands.
The hobby has a reputation as a haven for a bunch of crotchety old men who talk about nothing but ham radio, and collect postcards from people in small countries that they have done nothing more than exchange callsigns and reception reports from. Ham radio needs to have new blood. Many of the current ham population have pointed out that the thing that attracted them to radio was the ability to contact strange and distant lands, and that these days that role is fulfiled by the Internet.
;-) It's also cool to help out at events by helping with medical communications (for emergencies, etc). IMHO that aspect of the amateur radio service is far more important than a bunch of old farts sitting on a repeater bullshitting about yet-another-useless topic or talking about their equipment. The license requirement also seems to tend to keep the signal to noise ratio down a bit and keep the idiots off of it.
Well, speaking as a relatively new ham (got it in 1998) I would have to say I sort of agree with the "crotchety old men" remark. Ever go to a ham radio convention like at Dayton, OH? Jesus... it's a ton of old buggers selling every piece of shit they have in their basement they could lug.
I only got involved in it for the emergency communications aspect of the service. In the event of a real catastrophe there isn't going to be any phones or Internet connections.
How about the FCC mandating that we abandon all of these different incompatible systems and adopt a single standard cellular phone system like Europe has (maybe even using the same technology.. I know regular travelers to Europe would love to have just one phone). Get rid of the mish-mash of competing standards and you'll probably free up tons of bandwidth.
rofl. I was thinking the same thing! (as I'm sure many people were). "What the hell does the Whitehouse need that much bandwidth for?? Streaming porn? Videoconferences with interns?"
I thought russia was spending their money on oh.... say food? we are the only country that is really making oodles of money and we are not the only one making "stuff".
Correction, Russia was spending *our* money (the USA) and their launch vehicles on supporting Mir running the damned missions for Mircorp. They were being paid by the USA to build the damned module. The only reason being to foster international "unity" (no pun intended). It looks better in the papers to see the USA funneling money through the space program to NASA than just sending them a check for welfare aid.
I have to wonder -- why the hell are they flying with such flaky systems? And why are all the systems running Windows? I'm not suggesting everything suddenly switch to Linux, but it would seem to make sense that the servers (at least) run something more stable than the ones currently flying have demonstrated themselves to be.
Well, I don't know about the control systems for the shuttle, but they certainly do run Windows on the ground workstations to control experiments, from here:
--------------------------------------------
In addition to cost savings, Bradford promotes broadband connectivity via Internet2 networks as a way to allow wider participation in ISS science activities by academic and commercial entities. Using the Telescience Resource Kit (TReK), a Windows NT-based telemetry and command system developed by Marshall software engineers, researchers can monitor and control space station experiments directly from their offices and laboratories at home.
"This past year, we also put TRek workstations in 26 middle schools and high schools around the country," says Bradford. "We sent simulated space station data over their school networks, allowing them to participate in space station science."
A researcher needs a workstation with considerable horsepower to manage the telemetry, command payload operations, and communicate with the space station via voice and video. The recommended TRek hardware configuration is a dual Pentium III 500 MHz machine with a high-resolution display, 256 MB RAM and a 9 GB SCSI hard drive.
*snip*
"TRek has an open API", says Michelle Schneider, TRek development project lead. "It's basically a DLL library, a set of C functions, that any commercial product that supports an ANSI-C interface, such Visual C++ or Visual Basic, can use to retrieve telemetry data." Researchers also have the option of linking in other libraries such as Huntsville, Ala.-based Global Majic Software's instrumentation library to build end-user displays and computations that contain x-y plots, bar charts and other graphics. "We try to keep our telemetry processing system generic by using a Microsoft Access database to describe how a telemetry stream is put together. There is also a database definition document that details the schema and all of the database tables. We've had some internal discussion about a TRek port to the Linux platform, but that hasn't gotten off the ground yet."
-------------------------------------------
So basically, I don't know about the actual command of the vehicle itself, but the experiments are controlled via Microsoft Windows NT workstations (i.e. TReK).
You mean like some sort of "space shuttle"? That's a cool idea. We should get to work on it immediately.
Your social security money? Your social security money goes to pay for your grandmother and/or parents once they retire. Their social security "tax" went to their parents and grandparents (and others of retirement age of course). Social security is just a big ponzi scheme that will collapse in about 20 years once the baby boomers start retiring. I don't know about you, but I'll be about 45 then and I sure as hell am not going to watch 50-75% of my income taken away to sustain the same social security level for the boomers that retirees today get. Honestly, we should have done away with it years ago and instituted more tax deductions and tax-free investment plans that employees can use to build a REAL retirement fund. Oh wait, I forgot, we can't do that since we're stuck in this ponzi scheme. If we take the money we're paying social security now and invest it instead then there's no money for the current recipients. Oh well. We'll just keep paying our social security tax and pretend it'll be there when we retire. hehe. I'll also keep believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy while I'm at it.